


knife's edge

by thebrandywine



Series: Classical Bardic Training [1]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Badass Jaskier, Canon-Typical Violence, Excessive use of italics, Jaskier stands for J(askier)ustice, Kind of!, M/M, Not Beta Read, Secret Identity, guard from AC2: "ASSASSINO!", jaskier is enough of an elf to live happily ever after with Geralt, yen and jask are bffs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:07:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22396810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebrandywine/pseuds/thebrandywine
Summary: People often forget that bards are the greatest actors to walk the Continent.Or: Jaskier had a more… traditional bardic education.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Classical Bardic Training [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1614067
Comments: 114
Kudos: 3070
Collections: Fan Fiction Addiction, I Bet You Weren’t Expecting THIS (character to be so badass)





	knife's edge

**Author's Note:**

> hi hi! i have never touched the books or games (i'll get around to it one of these days) so this is based solely on futzing with the Netflix show. Jaskier is a lovable idiot but i wanted to see him as a STABBY lovable idiot too
> 
> it's been a while since i've written so please forgive any mistakes!

Jaskier kills his first man unassisted a few weeks after his twenty-fourth birthday, some minor noble who’d been a bit handsy with another man’s pretty young wife (more important to Jaskier was the fact that she was the man’s oldest victim). The next day’s performance in the local tavern is admittedly lackluster, as evidenced by the rain of bread that assaults him, but he can forgive himself for it. It’s tiring work, crouching on a rooftop in the rain like a gargoyle, waiting for your target to pass! All for the work of a moment, too— a miniscule blowdart the size of a splinter and a slow-acting poison designed to metabolize overnight. Despite the bone-deep ache that drags him toward sleep, he finds himself watching the man in the corner curiously. The white hair and yellow eyes remind him somewhat of a venomous snake, the danger loudly announced to all who would look upon him— _the Butcher of Blaviken_. Despite the warning signs, Jaskier finds himself intrigued. Surely no one can compare to one witcher but another, yet he feels a strange kinship with the hunter. That more than anything else prompts his legs to move. As he approaches what he can only call his own destiny, he hears the town crier from near across town yelling to all who would hear about the local lord, passing peacefully in his sleep.

—

The bard is consistently irritating. Like a horse’s tail in the heat of summer, Geralt swats at him like he is an endless swarm of flies and still finds no relief. He talks incessantly and plucks at his lute and cannot seem to stay still. His fingers and wrists are always stretching and flexing to stay limber, almost as a master swordsman would perform before battle. He often finds himself circling that thought and huffing a laugh each time, too quiet for the bard to hear. Once during their travels, Geralt catches the bard tucking a knife down into his boot and audibly snorts. Though it was closer to an exhalation of breath, it catches the bard’s attention.

“What?” he asks defensively. His child’s eyes peer up at the witcher, naive and soft. “Being a bard can be very dangerous, Geralt. It pays to have a line of defense!”

“Do you even know how to use that thing?” Geralt asks, amusement curling in his chest against his wishes. He doubts Jaskier could do more than flail around with it.

Jaskier stammers for a moment and then says, “ _Yes_ , obviously, you just stick them. With the pointy end.”

Geralt snorts again and the bard puffs up in anger, waggling a finger in his direction. “I’ll have you know that I’m very capable, Geralt. No one has ever come across this dagger and lived to tell the tale!”

“Unused, then?” Geralt asks drily. Jaskier’s frosty silence serves as a perfect answer.

—

It’s clear after their tangle with the elves that Geralt thinks he’s useless— at best a stumbling fool and a minor inconvenience. There are certainly moments when he allows himself to relax his own guard around the witcher, but throughout their travels, he makes sure to project the character of _Jaskier_ loudly and clumsily. It is, truthfully, the most obvious trick in the classical bard’s book, the pretense of gentility and whimsy. That above all else is what makes it so fantastically reliable. He trips over roots and his own feet, startles at the smallest of noises, and watches as the witcher firmly places him into the category of ‘non-threatening.’ _That_ he can surely work with. He trails after Geralt in his meandering path across the Continent, using their adventures to craft epics and ballads to keep up with his true love— the art of the song. Regardless of his other skills, no bard worth their salt can graduate from Oxenfurt without becoming a true master of music. His skill with the lute reliably finances their stays at inns they come across and keeps them all fed, Roach included. When their paths eventually diverge, as they often do, Jaskier sees the witcher off before turning his feet toward the largest and closest town. All nobles love to pay him, one way or another.

—

One night after a hunt, Geralt finds himself stalking the streets of a different city that somehow manages to be just the same as the rest. He’s restless after this last encounter, though he can’t say why. He’d slain the ghouls but had arrived too late to save their latest victim, a young lad with brown hair and blue eyes. The boy had reminded him somewhat distantly of—

The witcher pauses at the entrance to an alleyway stretching off to his left. Turning his head slightly, yellow eyes peer into the darkness to see a flash of silver and a gush of red. A large, bejeweled man slumps to the filthy bricks and the cloaked figure that has just ended his life flicks their knife to rid it of blood. As the figure raises their head to meet Geralt’s eyes, the witcher realizes with a start that there is no face looking back at him from under the hood. There is a moment’s pause that lasts an age before the figure’s hand twitches.

Two daggers fly at the same time, their points meeting halfway between the witcher and whoever stands over the cooling body, clanging loudly against each other before clattering to the ground. If Geralt had less control of himself, had certain reactions not been beaten out of him, he would have jerked back in surprise. As it is, he only grunts softly before turning quickly and sprinting down the alley. The figure waits for him to get closer before slinging a bottle at his feet and using the two close walls as anchors to jump and push themself up and onto the rooftops. The thin glass shatters and a cloud of peppermint explodes in Geralt’s face, searing through his nasal passage and causing him to squint as the figure jumps from roof to roof until they suddenly vanish.

When the burning scent clears from the air, Geralt looks down at the dead man. He’s saturated in liquor, fresh, likely poured on by the assassin. By morning, urchins and petty thieves will have picked over his body to take the bits that will sell for the most. An assassination disguised as a drunken theft gone wrong. Through the remaining odor of peppermint and the very present stink of cheap booze, the witcher smells something vaguely familiar. 

Geralt tilts his head back to look to the rooftops once more. “Hmm.”

—

He runs. He runs like hounds are at his heels— like a _wolf_ stalks his shadow. He jumps rooftops across town until he can clamber up the highest vantage point in the area. The charm that disguises his face, the thought pounds through his mind, _did it work_? Jaskier shoves himself into the smallest crevice in the church tower and waits a full day before descending, hoping that there are no yellow eyes to find him in the darkness once more.

By the time his feet hit the ground again, he has reassured himself. Of course the charm worked, of _course_ Geralt didn’t recognize him. Charms of this kind have been used by Oxenfurt bards for centuries. He tells himself that he’s being a fool, checks the city for Roach, and breathes a sigh of relief knowing that his friend is gone. He thinks briefly of the dagger he’d used the night before but knows that it’s been taken already by someone or other. A dozen others, all indistinguishable, sit warm against the skin of his wrists and torso. What’s one dagger?

—

The next time Geralt stumbles upon Jaskier it’s after killing a noonwraith outside of a village that consists only of five homes, an inn, and a smithy past his prime. Geralt spots the bard further down the road as he dismounts from Roach, sunlight settling on his brown hair with a soft glow. Jaskier seems to be unsuccessfully haggling with the blacksmith for a cheap-looking dagger, sized for a boot. Grumbling, Jaskier trades coin for the knife before testing its point with a frown and sticking it down his boot. Roach nibbles on Geralt’s hair and the witcher shakes himself out of his reverie, just as Jaskier turns to spot them.

“Geralt!” he beams happily before flitting over. He stumbles a bit before he gets to them and Geralt grabs his collar before hauling him upright. Jaskier only laughs before clapping him on the shoulder. “Thanks, old friend. It’s been ages! How have you been?”

“What happened to the old one?” Geralt asks, looking the bard over. His clothes are travel-worn and of more muted colors than usual. Though smiling as brightly as ever, he seems haggard and in need of a good rest.

“Hm? Oh, you know how it is,” the bard says with a dismissive hand wave. “The fates are fickle beings, apt to give and take at a moment’s notice!”

“So you were robbed then?” Geralt asks with a raised brow, looking him over again for injuries. Sunlight catches suddenly on a silvery scar lying diagonally across the man’s forehead, finishing with a dot just below his right eye. Frowning, Geralt grabs Jaskier’s chin to pull him closer.

“Oh, alright, um, hello! That’s just a little boo-boo, nothing to be concerned about,” Jaskier rambles. Geralt twists his head back and forth in the sun’s rays to get a better look. Jaskier doesn’t protest, allowing the witcher to move him as he pleases. “Only a simple misunderstanding over payment for services, that’s all.”

“Someone tried to gouge your eye out, bard,” Geralt says before releasing him, sounding as displeased as possible. Jaskier rubs at his chin and gives the witcher a sullen look. “Did they dislike your singing that much?”

Jaskier furrows his brow for a moment before rushing to answer, “Oh— yes! Very unsatisfied. They’d asked for one thing but it just didn’t feel right in the moment, you know, it wasn’t _just_ to subject anyone to the song they’d requested. Alas, I had already been paid! They _certainly_ didn’t appreciate my talent, I can tell you that much. Bit them in the ass, that’s for certain.” He finishes with a huff, looking for all the world like a child who’s just been scolded by his mother. Something warm curls in Geralt’s chest at the expression. He’s missed the bard, though he’d never admit it aloud.

“And the knife?” the witcher asks, amusement plain in his voice to those familiar enough to notice. Jaskier grins at his tone.

“I stuck someone with it!” he says, puffing his chest. “... and then ran away.” He grins sheepishly and spreads his hands as if to say ‘what can you do?’

Geralt snorts and grabs his shoulder to shove him toward the tavern on the inn’s first floor. “Only you, Jaskier.”

The next day after they’ve fallen into bed together for the first time, the witcher awakes tangled with the bard. His brown hair has fallen into his eyes during the night, and the soft light filtering through the window touches his bare skin. Geralt brushes his fingers over Jaskier’s nose, jawline, scar, barely visible pointed ears. The bard mutters in his sleep and pushes closer, tucking his head under Geralt’s chin and one bare leg between the witcher’s own. Geralt smooths a large hand over Jaskier’s bare back and closes his eyes again.

—

After the ball is in full swing but before the queen changes out of her armor, Calanthe asks for an audience. Jaskier obliges. In the silent halls of the residential wing, she lays out her plans and expectations. Jaskier nods silently, only speaking to ask for points of clarification.

“You’ll pass this along to her?” Calanthe asks from behind an ornate divider, servants helping her slip into something more suited for a feast.

“Yes, your majesty,” Jaskier says. He bows despite the fact that he’s fully aware she’s not looking his way. “Drusilla and I are close friends.”

“And what will she require for this?” the queen asks, stepping back into the open. The gown paints her a vision in gold. “Tell me, what is her price?”

“Only a favor of her choosing, majesty,” Jaskier replies.

“Hers or yours?” Calanthe scoffs. “See it done if you sense it on the horizon, bard, whatever the cost.”

Jaskier bows once more and makes his exit. When he enters the ballroom, lute in hand, he feels Geralt’s gaze heavy on his shoulders. When Calanthe appears soon after, Jaskier, despite his preoccupation with song, can feel his witcher mulling it over from across the room. When their eyes meet, Jaskier winks and wiggles his tongue at a particularly lascivious phrase. Though his expression doesn’t change, yellow eyes turn fond in a way that only Jaskier knows.

—

Calanthe’s sword crossed with his, Geralt watches as she stares him down only to glance over his shoulder. Jaskier stands directly behind him, Geralt knows, back with the crowd. Whatever the queen sees while looking at the bard makes her grit her teeth, anger flashing in her eyes.

“Stop,” she demands of the room. “ _Stop_!”

—

After that whole thing with the djinn, Jaskier feels like he’s allowed to be just a little, tiny bit _blatantly distrustful_ of Yennefer when she appears next to him quite suddenly at a gala. She doesn’t comment on the fact that he jumps nearly a foot in the air, nor does she mention the vial he slips back into his sleeve despite the fact that she obviously notices. She also, very kindly, says nothing about the servant’s outfit and ink-dyed hair he is currently sporting.

“Jaskier,” she says as if she’s tasting his name, the vowels long and drawn out. “Let’s take a walk.”

Her tone brooks no argument, so Jaskier follows. They leave the ballroom and cut through the servants’ corridor to the kitchen and out into the still night beyond. When she settles gracefully on an ornately carved bench, he remains standing.

“What kind of a bard are you, Jaskier?” she asks. Her tone implies that she already knows.

“Classically trained at Oxenfurt in the bardic arts,” he replies with only an ounce of bitterness. “I’m sure you’re well aware of what that entails.”

Yennefer hums. “I’m _aware_ that your mark tonight is not approved by the Academy.” Jaskier stiffens but doesn’t respond, only clasps his hands loosely together behind his back. She tilts her head over to catch his eye. “I take it that that means you disagree with their methods? Speak, bard. I will not harm you.” She smiles, all teeth.

Jaskier looks at her for a moment before huffing under his breath. “An innocent person’s life should not be ended only because a handful of coin is tossed a bard’s way. The _Academy_ ,” he stresses, “relies more on coin now than ever.”

She hums. “The woman inside?”

Jaskier darts a glance back at the door they exited from before answering. “She’s on her sixth husband. The men and children all die of disease, accidents, or what have you. There are some who find fault with that.”

Yennefer’s gaze hardens at the mention of the children and then smooths out, fortuitously, as the sounds of panic begin to filter outside from the ballroom. “Are you one of those to find fault, Jaskier?”

He bares his teeth in the approximation of a smile, something he most certainly did not pick up from Geralt. “One of many, Yennefer.”

She nods thoughtfully and summons a glass of wine into her hand. After a moment, she makes her request. “I’m looking for a friend of Drusilla.”

He doesn’t ask how she knows the code, or why she believes that Jaskier would be part of the small group of bards refusing to bow under the weight of coin (and threat of death). Jaskier only gives a disbelieving laugh before bending into a showman’s bow. “And you have found one.”

“Well, then, little bard,” Yennefer says as she turns to face him. “A conversation is necessary, it seems.”

Later, she stitches his skin back together and pops a joint or three back into place. Sweat stands out against his pale skin, the color sapped by blood loss. “You said it was only ten,” he mumbles, half delirious. “Not a whole damn battalion.”

“If you’d scouted more thoroughly,” she drawls in the face of his glare, before letting out a quiet laugh. “I knew you could handle it, bard. Your reputation precedes you.”

Jaskier grumbles a bit before saying, “That’s not good.”

Yennefer hums noncommittally, lowering her hands once he’s fully healed. “One good turn deserves another. I take it you’re opposed to coin?”

Jaskier takes a shuddering breath before he hauls himself upright. “Not always,” he says faintly. “But this time I will need a favor.”

—

Before Yennefer vanishes off of the face of the mountain, she casts a heated glance in Jaskier’s direction. “I have not forgotten, bard,” she spits out. “It will be done.” Then she’s gone.

Geralt closes his eyes for a moment against the oppressive heat of the sun, against the roiling in his gut that tells him he’s made a misstep he hadn’t known he was taking, before he turns around and stares Jaskier down.

The bard is oddly silent for a moment, eyes darting over Geralt’s form as if to ensure that he’s uninjured. “This is a fool’s question, but are you alright?” he asks. _Damned_ bard, always too soft for his own good.

The witcher draws in a long breath through his nose. Jaskier’s scent is carried to him on the breeze, and it is so close to home that Geralt could not stop his feet from moving if he tried. He closes the distance between them and cradles the bard’s face in his hands, Jaskier raising his own to hold loosely onto Geralt’s wrists. They watch each other for a moment before Geralt exhales more heavily than usual.

“Yes,” he says. He brings their lips together and feels Jaskier’s thumb stroking the back of his hand. After a few minutes exchanging affection, letting the other know that everything was fine, Geralt asks, “The coast?”

Jaskier smiles.

—

“‘Scuse me. You Jaskier?” The young girl asks, interrupting Jaskier and Geralt’s dinner at the closest inn to the foot of the mountain. She stands barely taller than the table itself, dewy brown eyes blinking up at the bard as her fingers grasp the wood. Her nails are filthy and while she tries to focus on Jaskier, her gaze keeps darting over to the untouched meat pie in front of him.

“The one and only, little one!” Jaskier says. He holds out one hand to shake which she takes shyly before dropping from her toes back onto the flats of her feet. “What can I do for you, darling?” While she’s distracted, he slips a bread roll into the pocket of her dress.

“My da said to find you. He said go to the inn and find tha’ bard Jaskier for a message, so I came here,” she babbles. “He said to tell you that some lady wants you in the square.”

Jaskier hummed, feeling Geralt’s eyes weighing heavily on the side of his face. “Did your father tell you the lady’s name?”

The girl furrows her brow for a moment before answering, “Druzila?”

“Drusilla?” Jaskier asks, and she nods. He hums again and hands her his meat pie before thanking her. As she scampers off clutching her prize, Jaskier mutters to himself, “Interesting…”

“Another nobleman’s wife?” Geralt asks drily. 

Jaskier laughs before peering at him between his eyelashes. “No more of those for me, Geralt. Surely you know that?”

Anyone less attuned to Geralt’s body language would fail to notice the corner of his mouth quirking upward, but Jaskier knows Geralt like he knows himself. Which is to say hardly at all, but enough to know how his body moves. The bard stands fluidly and slides his ale toward the other man, flexing his fingers and rolling his wrists.

“Don’t worry, my dear witcher,” Jaskier says with a performative bow. “I shall be back before you know it!”

Geralt grunts and rolls his eyes.

—

Hours later, Geralt flicks his eyes up at the door as it slams open, Jaskier falling over himself in a hurry to close it behind him. The bard wheezes and grips his side, a bloody dagger falling from his limp fingers with a soft thud.

Geralt jerks upright and finds himself in Jaskier’s space in an instant, manhandling him until he faces the witcher. “Jaskier, what—”

“You need to go, Geralt,” Jaskier says firmly, one eye dark and flat and brooking no argument, the other bloody and swollen shut. “ _Now_.”

“What happened?” Geralt asks, voice a low growl. He tries to grab at Jaskier’s chin to better assess the damage but the bard jerks away.

“If you don’t want to die tonight, then you need to get out of this town,” Jaskier hisses. “We were seen together and the one that got away is just a little bit irritated with me at the moment, so if you would _please pack your shit_ —”

The bard ducks around Geralt’s second attempt to grab him and hold him in place, picking up clothing and supplies with bloody fingers and shoving them roughly into their well-worn packs. The wound on his side gushes freely until Geralt finally manages to grab ahold of Jaskier and place a firm hand over it to stem the bleeding. Jaskier whines low in his throat at the pressure and trembles against his grip, feeling to Geralt as if he is made of glass, a moment away from shattering.

“Jaskier,” Geralt says again. “ _Tell me_.”

“You stubborn witcher,” Jaskier laughs with a hitch in his voice. He finally meets Geralt’s eyes when he speaks again, smiling with bloody teeth. “Never know when to leave well enough alone. I’m being hunted and if you don’t leave now, they will use you to get to me.”

“Who?” Geralt asks. Jaskier looks away but Geralt twists his head around until their eyes meet again. The bard stares at him for a long moment before seemingly coming to a decision.

“There is an order to things, Geralt, and when that order is disturbed it must be corrected at all costs,” the bard says intensely. His eyes are molten silver as they stare at him. “When power is abused it must be curtailed. Do you understand?”

“Damn it, Jaskier,” Geralt growls. “Speak plainly for once in your life!”

The window curtain shifts, Jaskier jerks in his grip, and a dead man falls into the room with a silver dagger in his throat. Geralt stares for a moment before turning back to the bard, who has now gone pale. When their eyes meet once more, Jaskier’s mouth pulls down at the corner.

“I did tell you that I was a classically trained bard,” he says.

—

A week later, after Geralt and Jaskier smuggle themselves out of the city and make for the coast, after the bard has explained the entire situation as well as what exactly he’d gotten up to in their times apart, Jaskier slips away sometime in the night without alerting him. He wakes up to a note tucked under the neck of his tunic, scribbled all over in classic Jaskier style. ‘A few loose ends to tie up’ is what it amounts to. It’s signed with an annoyingly illegible signature next to a quick drawing of a flower. When Geralt casts his eye over the camp, the only sign that the bard had ever been there is a lute stood against a tree and a few yellow flowers tucked into Roach’s mane.

—

Jaskier has kept a list in his head for quite some time. As weeks turn into months, the list gets shorter and shorter. Eventually, only two names remain. One in Oxenfurt and one, as a favor long past due, in Nilfgaard.

The headmaster of the Academy, the man who sent untrained bardlings to kill him and therefore sent them to their deaths, falls quickly. Older than he used to be, the man dies and with him dies the classic bardic order, at last. No more young boys slitting throats, no more slipping poison to lovers, Jaskier thinks with a sneer. He’s not an entirely cruel man, but he does twist the knife a bit before sinking it into the old bastard’s heart. Nilfgaard is a shitshow but the mage from Aretuza falls and with her much of the invading force’s stability. Jaskier nearly dies once or twice but manages alright with some supplies he procures from a local hedgewitch. Plenty of favors to cash in, after all. There are friends of Drusilla everywhere.

—

Geralt is kneeling in the gatekeep, meditating to pass the time, listening vaguely to the sounds of an invading army. He doesn’t stir when the air shifts until Yennefer says his name. When he looks up at her, two faintly glowing sets of eyes meet in the dark. Though time passes differently for people such as them, the year or so apart has not entirely rid Yen of the sneer she wore on the dragon’s mountain.

“I owe your bard a favor,” she says as he climbs to his feet. “Two now, I suppose, after that little stunt in Nilfgaard.”

“Jaskier is in Nilfgaard?” the witcher asks sharply.

“You say that as if he’s trapped there,” Yennefer laughs softly. “It’s more accurate that Nilfgaard is trapped with him. Follow me, quickly.” With that, she steps through a portal. Geralt grabs a passing guard and slams him against the iron bars, unlocks the gate, and gathers his things before following.

They step into Calanthe’s room, the woman herself bloody and wheezing upon a fainting couch. Guards draw their swords and Mousesack gathers Princess Cirilla to his side. Calanthe’s eyes flicker up to take them in before she nods once, to herself. “The bard?” she asks.

“Nilfgaard will fall, as requested,” Yennefer responds. “We are here for the child surprise.”

—

In the end, Jaskier calls on Yen for one last favor. Nilfgaard has fallen, as has Cintra, but he knows that Yennefer always honors what other people are owed her. He knows that Geralt and the child surprise are safe if nothing else. Angry voices interrupt his mind’s wandering and he glares in their general direction. This has all the makings for an epic if only he could focus. Or a song perhaps— oh, speaking of songs, he had promised Geralt that he would come back in his note. He mutters in Elder and before long a portal opens before him, bearing Yennefer to his side.

“The witcher will be cross with me if you die, bard,” she says. Jaskier grins up at her from the floor of the coat closet he’s jammed himself into, blood spilling over his lips. He winces when a rather brutal slam against the barred door causes the arrows buried in his torso to jerk. She lifts him gently from the floor, despite her indifferent words, and doesn’t complain about him getting blood all over her dress. Ah, friendship. She all but carries him through the portal, out of the stuffy former Nilfgaardian palace and into what he assumes are the drafty halls of Kaer Morhen.

“Geralt,” she calls. He would call it lazy in tone if not for how tightly her fingers dig into his skin, pushing magic in to stem the bleeding without healing over the arrows. The man in question dashes around the corner, drawing close in an instant. Hands skim quickly over his body, one set larger than the other, and Jaskier allows himself to drift, finally safe. Days later, he wakes to a general ache and curious blue eyes staring down at him.

“Oh, Jaskier!” the child surprise says. “You’re awake— let me find Geralt!”

With that, she sprints out of the room hollering for the witcher, the door slamming against the stone wall loudly. The sounds roll around in Jaskier’s head, deafening, and he grimaces until a large hand smooths over his forehead. He sighs as a kiss is placed on the scar just below his right eye and smiles.

“Geralt,” he says, the exhaustion plain in his voice.

“Jaskier,” the witcher rumbles softly. He brushes his thumb over the bard’s cheekbone, over and over, a soothing rhythm. “You forgot your lute.”

When his eyes crack open, Geralt is staring down at him fondly. “Nah,” he says dismissively. “I knew Roach’d take care of it.”

Geralt tucks his nose against Jaskier’s pulse point, breathing slowly. “Since when do you overthrow kingdoms?”

Jaskier raises one shaky hand to bury in white hair. “You know me,” he says, halfway back asleep. “One good turn deserves another.”

**Author's Note:**

> sorry this is rushed-- like i said, it's been a while!!
> 
> follow me at tvnnelsnake.tumblr.com if you want to talk about Geraskier


End file.
